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May 22, 2014
BETHLEHEM - Just like any parish decorating the church for a special occasion, Palestinians are decorating Bethlehem in advance of Pope Francis' visit on May 25. But these decorations are also a message to the world about the plight of Palestinians.
I was one of an estimated 23,000 people of all ages and religious backgrounds on Parliament Hill for the 17th annual National March for Life, joining a busload of students from Msgr. Percy Johnson, Don Bosco and Fr. John Redmond Catholic Secondary Schools who joined the Salesians from St. Benedict’s parish.
On the way out of Manger Square, down a steep drive and onto the commercial street, a woman in fashionable trekker gear with a $1,000 Canon digital SLR slung from her shoulder pulls out her phone and aims the little plastic lens at the street generally. You have seen pictures like the one she has just taken — slightly skewed vistas of a lot of pavement and distant pedestrians and colourful street signs and maybe the hood of a passing car.
The Catholic mayor of Bethlehem, Vera Baboun, has issued a plea for "peace and justice" on the eve of the May 24-26 pilgrimage by Pope Francis to the Holy Land.
May 23, 2014
BETHLEHEM - Catholic priests in the Palestinian Territories want Pope Francis to press Israel to allow greater freedom of movement, especially access to holy sites in Jerusalem, and they expect the issue to be addressed when the Pope meets with Israeli leaders in Jerusalem on May 26.
The Alpha program in Canada wants no Catholic left behind, especially the younger generations.
OXFORD, England - Catholics in Libya are "living in fear" as conflict escalates between Islamist militias and followers of a rebel general, said priests in Tripoli and Benghazi.
DUBLIN - The Vatican's chief prosecutor of sex abuse crimes said the Church needs to do more to develop the process for punishing bishops who fail in their duty to protect children.
VATICAN CITY - The UN Committee Against Torture urged the Vatican to impose "meaningful sanctions" on any Church authority who fails to follow Church law in dealing with allegations of sexual abuse and asked that Church officials worldwide be required to report abuse allegations to local police.
TORONTO - Gwen Landolt is only the third woman to win the Archbishop Adam Exner Award since the Catholic Civil Rights League established the honour a decade ago.
OTTAWA - The Quebec National Assembly is on track to vote in favour of euthanasia by early June, putting the province on a collision course with the federal government.
BETHLEHEM - Come Sunday morning about 9,000 Christians who have been granted tickets will form Pope Francis' congregation on Manger Square in Bethlehem. Around, above and behind them will be as many as 800 journalists.
BETHLEHEM, West Bank - A long line of cars trailed down the road next to the Church of the Nativity as Franciscan Father Ibrahim Faltas helped coordinate the placement of the electricity generator for the May 25 papal Mass.
The other night I went to Mass and had dinner with a touring group of university students from Winnipeg. The gang was in the care of a young Jesuit priest and professor at St. Paul's University.
BETHLEHEM - As workers continue to assemble the stage on which Pope Francis will celebrate Mass in Manger Square, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew visited the city of Jesus' birth, leading a procession of Orthodox bishops, priests and officials from the Palestinian Authority into the Church of the Nativity.
May 24, 2014
Queen’s Rotaract Club is taking an active interest in a Thunder Bay, Ont., First Nations community.
MISSISSAUGA, ONT. - When St. Mary Star of the Sea parish was founded in 1913, it was a beacon of hope for Catholics in Port Credit, a then-active harbour and port west of Toronto where the Credit River meets Lake Ontario.
Success, writes Fr. Ron Rolheiser in his new book Sacred Fire, has little to teach us in the second half of life. Where we learn as we mature is through our disappointments, boredom, resentment and frustration.
TORONTO - The last time Fr. Peter Marr remembers St. Augustine’s Seminary opening its doors freely to the public he was deeply engrossed in studies there.
AMMAN, Jordan - Pope Francis began a densely packed visit to the Holy Land with a call for religious freedom in the Middle East, including respect for the right to change one's religion.